I was at the post office earlier today, cleaning out my post office box. I never get there are often as I should. As usual, I was throwing small town newspaper after small town newspaper into the trash bin they have for that purpose. Just as a matter of course, I asked the post office employee did they recycle these. I had always assumed they did.

She said, “Oh, no.”

“You just take them to the landfill?”

“Yeah, they just get thrown out…they burn them there, don’t they?” Like that was an environmentally friendly alternative.

“Well, yeah, but the carbon emissions aren’t good for the atmosphere.”

“Oh, well, there’s too much damage. There’s nothing that can be done to turn things around until Jesus comes and creates a new world, right?”

I was stunned, “Well…yeah…” – religion wasn’t the issue here, I just wanted to follow her line of thinking – “But that still doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be responsible while we’re waiting.”

“Well, we don’t have recycling here…am I supposed to take them?”

Thinking of the recycles I take to dispose of, I said, “I do, I take mine.”

“We only work eight hours here…”

I kept the papers I would have thrown out, and took them with me.

She is the nicest lady ever. I really like her. She wasn’t being mean. That’s what scared me.

This isn’t about whether I think employees should go the extra mile to recycle if their township or place of employment doesn’t care to address recycling. It was her reliance of her religion to take care of everything as a justification for doing nothing, as a reason to keep on polluting the environment and mindlessly using up our resources that really amazed me and sent a chill down my spine.

Didn’t Jesus say something about stewardship? Aren’t we supposed to mind the store while the master is out? Is there anywhere in the Bible that says we can just trash the earth, because God is going to clean up after us when he gets here?

So what is he? Some Divine Janitor?

There’s too much damage…maybe. But that doesn’t mean we stop trying or give us leave to contribute more to the waste and toxins that have already caused damage. God help us that we never have that attitude toward our fellow human beings who are dying from what we would call an incurable disease.

“Well, you’re already in the last stages of lung cancer, so I’ll just sit here and blow cigarette smoke in your face, because Jesus will give you a new body anyway, after you pass away.”

That’s outrageous. No one with any decency would do that, and the first person who would be loving and giving to this one, would be that sweet postal worker.

But how important, also, is it to give that same compassion and responsibility to the Earth? And how sad and frightening to use the sad state of the Earth’s environmental health to continue making it sick, because we believe a Great Physician will fill the right prescription for our irresponsibility.

So what will we do until Jesus comes? And what will we do if we believe he never will? The bottom line is how responsible do we choose to be, right here, right now in this moment? Because no matter who you believe you will be accountable to, we all are going to have to face the music, sooner or later, for how we treat the Earth.

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About the Author

About the Author: Demian Yumei, author, singer/songwriter and artist activist, uses spoken, written word and original songs in her human rights activism. She's a long time traveler on the healing journey and has a lifelong love affair with the creative process. More from this author.

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